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Regional meetings to be streamed on web

The debates and decisions of regional council can now be seen by residents in real time without setting foot in council chambers.

The websites of the St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review and Welland Tribune, which have been regularly live streaming regional council meetings for some time, will this week begin streaming standing committee meetings as well.

The newspapers will do so through use of feeds provided by Niagara Region.

The Region has been live streaming its council meetings since completion of chamber renovations in April 2014. Standing committees followed in February 2015.

Public response has been positive as attempts are made to leverage the new technology available at the headquarters, manager of client and support services Steve Biletchi said.

Past viewership has varied from meeting to meeting, with some drawing a few hundreds people and others only dozens.

“It all depends on the topic being discussed,” Region communications specialist Daryl Barnhart said, adding contentious issues and public delegations on hot topics tend to draw more interest.

The benefit of streaming does not end once the live feed is over.

The Region archives each recorded meeting through its YouTube channel for the public, staff and councillors to access.

“A lot of people watch on demand, on their own time,” Barnhart said.

“Whether there are 10 people watching or 1,000, it’s a benefit to live stream.”

The videos provide an opportunity for staff and council to catch up on issues discussed during meetings they were unable to attend.

The Region, however, does not yet have the ability to webcast all of its meetings.

That is due in part to staff resources, given the considerable number of subcommittees, but also due to space constraints, deputy clerk Natasha Devos said.

Council chambers is the only room technologically equipped for the service.

Attempts to hold all meetings in that space would ultimately lead to scheduling conflicts, she said.

Council meetings, standing committees, budget review and business planning council sessions, as well as some meetings of the Burgoyne Bridge replacement project task force, have made it to the web.

The service, Barnhart said, “speaks to council’s commitments to being open and transparent.”